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Cyan's IPO opens under price at $10.05; hopes to raise $110 million

Cyan, an emerging software-defined networking (SDN) and packet-optical transport platform (P-OTP) vendor, saw its initial public offer of 8 million shares of common stock, priced at $11 per share, open at $10.05 this morning on the New York Stock Exchange.

The startup is trading under the symbol CYNI. While it hopes to raise $110 million from its IPO, the opening share price values the company at a respectable $448 million.

While Cyan is still a relatively young company, it has already gained traction in a number of large Tier 1 telcos, including CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), which is transitioning its optical backbone network to support higher speed optical and Ethernet services.

CenturyLink is using Cyan's Z-Series P-OTP to deliver connection-oriented Ethernet (COE) services over optical fiber to the schools throughout Monroe, La.

Cyan is selling all of the shares in the offering, while the underwriters have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.2 million shares of common stock from Cyan at the initial public offering price.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are acting as lead joint book-running managers for the offering, while Jefferies LLC is acting as a book-running manager, and Pacific Crest Securities LLC is acting as a co-manager.

This is the third startup company that Cyan's president co-founder Michael Hatfield has been involved in that has gone public. Before Cyan, he co-founded Calix (NYSE: CALX), which went public in 2010. Earlier, he served as an early team member and vice-president of marketing for Advanced Fibre Communications (AFC), which became a publicly traded company and was later purchased by Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB).

Cyan's shares were trading at $10.66, down 0.34, or 3.09 percent in Thursday morning trading on the NYSE.

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